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To:
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Chemical Industry Council of Illinois (CICI) Members
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From:
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Mark Biel, Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] or 217/522-5805
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Re:
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update – Updated USEPA, CDC Guidance on Cleaning and Disinfecting Spaces; Guidance to Reduce Risk of Legionella; Update on COVID-19 Cases; Hospitalization Rates Show Greatest Improvement
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Updated USEPA, CDC Guidance on Cleaning and Disinfecting Spaces: Today,the USEPA and the CDC released the attached updated guidance for cleaning and disinfecting public spaces, workplaces, businesses, schools and homes. The guidance also tracks with the Opening Up America Again Guidelines. The guidance offers a practical, three-step process for preparing spaces for reopening, including developing, implementing, and maintaining clean and disinfected surfaces, which is an important, two-step process central to any effort to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Potential Increased Exposure Risk to Legionella Bacteria and Other Opportunistic Pathogens in Re-Opening Shuttered Facilities & Idled Buildings: The Alliance to Prevent Legionaries’ Disease has made the attached guidance document available for water utility managers, facility operators, and maintenance engineers to be aware of waterborne pathogens. The reduction and changes in water usage across community water systems and facilities caused by government-ordered shutdowns have increased risks of waterborne illness due to water age, stagnation, dissipation of disinfectants, and other factors.
As facilities are re-opened it is imperative that water utilities and facility managers take steps to minimize exposure to opportunistic pathogens including legionella, pseudomonas aeruginosa and non-tuberculosis mycobacteria that live in the biofilm of stagnant water throughout our water distribution systems, water storage tanks, buildings and residences. Further, once federal and state governments declare it safe for individuals to return to workplaces, which may have been closed for months, special care should be taken to prevent exposure to these pathogens during this process.
Update on COVID-19 Cases: The Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is now reporting a total of 4,379 deaths, an increase of 146 since yesterday. There are currently 98,030 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 1,545 cases from yesterday. In total, 621,684 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, an increase of 18,443 over the weekend. Consistently - almost 90% of all positive COVID-19 cases and deaths have been located in the Chicagoland area.
The positivity rate since yesterday is at 8.3% for the entire state with all of the state’s regions consistently being under 20% for the last 7 days. Again, IDPH’s webpage tracks positivity and hospitalization rates for the state’s four regions.
You can check where these cases are occurring at the State of Illinois COVID-19 website which also contains more information on this outbreak. Also, IDPH has a case breakdown of the number of positive cases in Chicago and each county relative to the number of fatalities. The IDPH website also now includes a breakdown of the cases under each zip code in the state. In addition, Western Illinois University has an put together this Map of COVID-19 Cases in Illinois & Surrounding States which gives you picture of where COVID-19 cases are occurring in relation to areas surrounding Illinois.
Worldometer also has a site with pertinent statistics on a state by state breakdown and comparison. Also, the City of Chicago has a good categorization of the cases within the city.
Hospitalization Rates Show Greatest Improvement: Of the 98,030 positive cases in Illinois, there are 4,002 cases requiring some sort of hospital care. Of those cases, 993 patients, or 24.8% of hospital cases, require ICU care and 576 patients were on ventilators. These hospitalized patients represent only 4% of all positive cases. As recently as April 27, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was 10.1%. These rates are the lowest its been since IDPH began reporting these figures on April 12.
As for recovery rates, IDPH is still in the process of compiling data and hope to have that available on their website shortly, but did say today that 70-74% of positive cases from the last 28 days have made a full recovery.
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